into the wild

Days of hiking throught the jungle and wading through the swamp as we spotted animals and birds everywhere.
Nights of camp fire chats, star gazing, drinking caprihinas and swinging in hammocks.
And lots of rice and beans in between.

Just spent the last four days and three nights living the jungle life. We jumped into a jeep in Campo Grande with our tour organised by Ecological Expeditions on Tuesday morning and we were on our way. The pantanal is a wet land around half the size of France right in the middle of Brazil and is one of the best places to spot a wide range of wildlife in South America. And thats just what we did for our few days. We were picked up at the entrance the the pantanal (there's only one main road running through it) by a big safari bus and we all piled in along with the food supplies for the next few days. Even on our journey to our camp, without a guide pointing things out, we spotted loads of animals and birds. The first thing we spotted actually were the caimen, a smaller relative of crocs and alligators. They were everywhere!

We arrived at our camp late afternoon and were told to choose our hammocks. We settled in a bit, had dinner (rice and beans) and after the sun went down and we were chatting by the fire, Brian and another Irish couple (both lads brought a bottle of Cachaca, the main ingredient in Caprihinas, and limes to camp just incase!) asked one of the Brazilian guides, Alex, how to make the perfect caprihinas. They got a masterclass and we enjoyed our Brazilian cocktails by the campside, under the stars for the rest our the trip.

Our next few day consisted of a jeep safari, a jungle trek, night jeep safari, (unsuccessful) pirahna fishing, floating down the river in rubber boats and a bird watching boat trip! And the amount of wildlife was pretty amazing. We spotted kingfishers, cranes, storkes, macaws, toucans, hawks, vultures, howler monkeys, armedillos, capibaras, deer, sea otters, racoons, iguanas, huge frogs and teeny frogs and more! During the night safari, we even stopped to stare at a tarantuala! :( It was pretty hard to get the animals on camera cause they were hiding behind the green and kept moving like wild animals do so I gave up and just observed after a while. 

     

At one point, as we were stopped by a shop/house/farm the owner asked our guide to get rid of an anaconda that was bothering his chickens! It was a mighty two metres and we took him into the middle of a field and watched him find his way back to the water. Dangerous stuff! And I did almost step on a caimen as I waded through the swamp. My only rescue was our guide Jhonny whistling and waving at me to move out of the way! There was no talking while on the trek, not to even warn against potential croc attack! I really enjoyed my few days covered in mud and the paranoid itching from all the mosquitos and lazily swinging in my hammock. So now it's goodbye Brazil and hello Bolivia...